


The Element of Fire Is Quite Put Out

by cymbalism



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Dubious Consent, M/M, Mutant hormones made them do it, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-29
Updated: 2011-11-29
Packaged: 2017-10-26 16:37:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/285497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cymbalism/pseuds/cymbalism
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mutant hormones made them do it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Element of Fire Is Quite Put Out

**Author's Note:**

> Trope!fic is not my standard fare but, well, I saw [this desperately dirty photo](http://pics.livejournal.com/likecharity/pic/001z2pb2), thought _hot damn that could be Charles_ , and dreamt up a way to make it so. Sex-pollen(ish) fic ensued.

 

* * *

 

"And new Philosophy cals all in doubt,  
The Element of fire is quite put out;  
The Sunne is lost, and th'earth, and no mans wit  
Can well direct him where to looke for it."  
— John Donne (1621)

  
_"You won't like what I can do," the woman had said blankly, funneling a stream of smoke from her bottom lip upward and away. Erik didn't need Charles's power to know she'd rather be blowing it in their faces._

_But Charles hadn't believed her. Of course._

_"Chemical alteration of the human system has great potential as—"_

_"No," she cut him off. "What I can do, there's no 'potential.' It's got no purpose." She tossed down her cigarette and crushed it with the toe of her beige pump into the corridor tile. Her clothing suggested she might be a bank teller or switchboard operator. A mutant woman hiding in her normal life in this normal small town. Unremarkable on the surface, except, perhaps, that she remained unmarried at her age. She frowned at Erik as though she was the one who could read his thoughts and shifted her weight in the doorway. "You should go."_

_Charles grinned as though she'd invited them in for tea and cakes instead. "You're right. We should, shouldn't we Erik?" His eyes sparkled with good humored defeat as he shot a look Erik's way. "But do give some thought to our offer. I'm sure that with some focused research we could find the right purpose for your gift."_

_"'Gift?'" She'd balked._

_And then two things happened. Charles held out his hand, saying "Thank you for your time," and the woman ignored it, clapping her hands on either side of Charles's thick skull and planting a kiss on him instead._

_Erik's first instinct was for metal—in the few seconds it took for him to detect there was nothing useful nearby and grab for Charles, Charles had pushed her off on his own. Still, Erik braced a hand under Charles's arm and edged a shoulder between the two of them._

_The woman wiped at her smudged lipstick with the back of her hand and fixed Charles with a cold stare. "Little gift from me to you," she sneered. "You tell me what good that does."_

_Charles had insisted he was fine as they made their way back to their automobile, but not long after Erik started driving he began to look ill. Nauseated, perhaps—he was hugging his abdomen, leaning his head against the window, eyes screwed shut and mouth turned down. He'd said nothing until, "Please, Erik. Please, can we stop? Stop to . . . to get some water. For me. Please."_

_Erik had done it, not knowing what else to do. He'd strolled into a diner at the outskirts of the town to ask for a glass of water for his distressed companion._

But now, as Erik stands outside blinking into the sunshine, water in hand, both Charles and the auto are gone.

 

* * *

 

Vision blurred and head spinning, Charles makes it, but just barely, to one of the roadside motels with postage-stamp-sized cabins that dot rural American highways. He's hot under the collar. Or, rather, he's fever hot all over, but his collar is a starched vice as he trades currency for a key and wipes the suspicion from the mind of the young man behind the counter. He staggers into the cabin assigned to him and lodges a wooden chair under door handle—likely in vain, he knows, but he has to try.

Charles reaches to draw the shades and lets out a wail. The shift of his clothes over his body is sandpaper over raw skin. It's enough to collapse his knees. His skin stings as though it's scalded and the unwelcome erection that began as embarrassing is now an agony. He's wretched over it, over all of it, but if he hadn't driven away from Erik . . . At least this way he can't hurt anyone. He can feel what his body wants. No, not wants. Charles does not want this, there is no desire here. There is only what his body has been made to demand. He's been infected, invaded, and the dark need slices up from inside, a hungry, medieval beast ripping with talons and fangs that will split him in half if he refuses to feed it.

But he controlled it for this long. He's held back the clamor inside that's commanding him to _consume take devour_ and now, now that he's alone, he can quell it. Get it out of his head, his system, his body. He can end it.

He stumbles to the bed and claws off his clothes. Relief and outrage rip from his lungs in a whimper.

 

* * *

 

Erik walks.

He has walked further on hotter days, in countries far less tame than this one.

Only one driver stops to offer him a lift, a grizzled man in a dust-covered Chevrolet truck who squints at Erik distrustfully through the open window. Erik tells him no, thank you, he prefers to walk. The man grunts and looks Erik over warily, taking the measure of the man with the foreign accent. Distaste and indignation roil through Erik and he feels the lurch of power as the man in the mass of metal rumbles away from him. He considers stalling the engine, crumpling a tire rim, pressing the accelerator to the floor and sending the man into the tree in the distance. But he doesn't. Because Charles would tell him no, tell him to calm his mind. And Erik may have no loyalty to these bigoted humans or this bloated American nation, but he has to Charles.

Charles who is the architect of Erik's new universe, who has shown Erik he is not alone, claimed him as a friend, and silently slipped them both into a smiling unspoken attraction in the span of just days. Charles who is now ill and likely frightened. Charles who, in his own unfailing loyalty, wouldn't have left Erik unless he was taken by force or driven by need. Erik assumes the latter but doesn't rule out the former. And will do whatever is necessary in either event.

At the next intersection, Erik pauses. He can't be sure which direction Charles went and he would never presume to know how Charles's brilliant but confounding mind works. But he knows what it is to be alone and desperate.

Erik follows the rural road to the left, heading west and away.

 

* * *

 

Charles's breath comes out in shreds. He shakes, cold from the fever, hot with exertion. The thing possessing him hasn't loosened its grip.

Charles is a geneticist, a biophysicist. He can lecture on the double helix and its tightly wound construction, how its chemical laces tie together in elegant, unbreakable bows, how these are the bonds that lash every living being together to weather the storm of surviving. He can speak on the science of pheromones, those subversive chemicals that signal, prime, release, mark, coerce. He can identify what's happening within him as his heartbeat rises and his skin beads with sweat, as the motion of his hand stokes the fire in his body to a consuming blaze, as he cries out and comes—again—over his cramped fingers, helpless and hurting.

In the clear-headed seconds afterward, he knows all this, what it is, why it's happened, and he feels the shame of this solution. But then it's searing inside of him again and everything he knows doesn't matter, doesn't compare. Doesn't help him tame the raging burn beneath his skin.

He rolls to his side, curling in on himself, accepting defeat.

 

* * *

 

Erik stops outside the tiny cabin. The clerk in the office remembered handing a man—but golly, he's not real sure what the fella looked like, sorry, Mister—the key to cabin twelve earlier that afternoon, but Erik knows he's found Charles. Even meters away he can feel the frenetic telepathic energy, the smoky buzz in his mind and hot tingle at the base of his neck—Charles's power creeping like fingers, searching, seeking, smothering.

The cabin is quiet and Erik can sense the bolt for the door is in place. There are no signs of struggle and the clerk was certain Charles was alone. He doesn't know what he's expecting as he knocks, but it isn't the low, pained moan he hears.

"Charles? Are you hurt?" he asks. There's no response. "Charles? Charles, open the door."

Charles shouts at him to leave.

Erik forces his way in.

Charles is on his side in the rumpled bed, naked. His shape is contorted; one knee almost to his chest, one hand plunged between his legs. He turns his face into the bedcovers, both to hide in shame from Erik's gaze and because he's nearly gone with orgasm—Erik knows because he hears it in his head. The onslaught of psychic disturbance hits him like a massive roar. He flinches back a step even though the only true noise in the cabin is Charles's ragged breathing.

It's clear Charles has no control over what he's projecting. He's as lost as he looks.

"Erik," he rasps, "Erik leave." Charles clutches the bed clothes and squeezes his eyes shut harder.

Erik doesn't leave. He doesn't understand what's happening or how, but he closes the door and stays where he is because he can sense in the swirl of conflicting instincts and emotions from Charles's mind that to stop him would cause more pain.

"Please," Charles begs. "Go. Erik, please." But even as he says it aloud, the begging for Erik to leave is corrupted into begging for _Erik_ , and Erik sees what Charles's hormone-drenched mind can't keep from him—Erik with him, in him, around him, having him. _Please. Please, Erik. Oh, God. **Erik**._

He feels the shot of ecstasy as Charles grips himself sharp and hard—punishment for the thought, vain hope to control the uncontrollable, desperation to come again, to come harder, to _make it stop_.

Charles rolls into the bed with a sob, and Erik watches his body tense as he ejaculates, radiating apologies and embarrassment even while Erik's name throbs through his thoughts.

When it's over, the smothering weight in the room lifts, a bit, and Erik unclenches the fists he wasn't aware he'd made. "This is what she can do," Charles pants, skin pale and lips red from biting. He's still not looking at Erik but he sounds slightly more lucid. "This is her power. It's pher—" There's a surge of pity, self-pity from Charles but genuine pity and concern for the woman whose "gift" has so isolated her, but underneath it is dread. "It's still in me. I can't—"

The break in Charles's already weak voice ricochets through Erik's chest and he reaffirms the decision he's already made.

"I can help," he says, hands open and steady at his sides, and locks the door with a whisper of power.

"No! No, Erik. Bloody hell." Charles's British mores of appropriateness fight a losing battle as images and fears flood Erik's mind—images of the self-abuse Charles engaged in for the last few hours and of what could be with Erik, fears of how much more he wants and what it will take to stop. He sits up and Erik can see he's still erect. _No. Please. I might—_

"You won't hurt me. I won't let you hurt me." Erik keeps his voice low and steps forward. Catching Charles at his shaking shoulders, he runs a hand through his sweat-damp hair. He has no fear of this, no qualms about doing this for Charles if this is what will keep him by Erik's side.

"You don't have to do this alone." Whatever was to be between them shouldn't have to happen this way. This isn't the natural course. Charles is being forced to lay himself bare, body and mind, to expose more to Erik than any person should know about another.

And yet, Charles already knows everything Erik is. Erik can know this.

He's on the bed now, touching, soothing, kissing Charles's temple, his jaw. "I can make you come, Charles," he says and his voice feels thick and low in his throat. _I want to._ He kisses Charles full on the mouth and feels the violent swirl of angry lust. _Let me, let me_ , he sends, hoping Charles can hear him and easing him back to the bed from where he'd struggled up.

Charles gives in because he can't not, but it's to a mental litany of _yes please Erik yes_. And, when Erik opens their kiss and slides over to straddle Charles it becomes _yes, oh Christ, Erik yes_.

 

* * *

 

Erik doesn't laugh at his desperation. Better, he doesn't hesitate. He doesn't try to make this what it isn't—romantic, tender, something they can call theirs. Charles doesn't want this to belong to him, no matter how much he wants Erik, has wanted Erik.

He shoves at Erik's clothes, bites at his shoulder, tasting sweat and dust. The second Erik is bare Charles pulls him down and grinds up hard against him. The press of someone else's skin is a cool shock, a lick of ice water. As the creature clamors inside him and he drags Erik close— _closer, there now yes_ —Charles prays for drowning.

 

* * *

 

Erik notes Charles's collar bones and surprisingly broad chest, the warm scruff at his cock. Parts that please him but there is no time to linger over. He sucks at Charles's neck, pulls him in by the thigh for a tight fit, and lets Charles rut against him, pushing back to make it good. Charles comes between them, head back, breathing heavily, a beautiful wreck. It wasn't nearly long enough for Erik to be even close, but that's for the best. He'll have to hold off from orgasm for now. He can't fuck Charles soft.

Beneath him, Charles moans, nudging his hips up and up and up against Erik. His thoughts are a mess of unmeasured need in Erik's head.

They begin again.

 

* * *

 

It's happening easier with Erik. With his body, his mouth, the precious crook of his hip. There's more time to think in between, each descent isn't as terrifying. The burn and ache recede with Erik's touch—anywhere, everywhere. But too much pleasure feels like pain and Charles still can't stop.

They're upright on the bed now, Charles wrapped around Erik like a poisonous vine, clinging, possessing.

Erik kisses his mouth and drags an idle finger through the fresh semen smeared on Charles's abdomen. "Do you want me to fuck you, Charles?" he whispers at Charles's ear. Erik hasn't come yet. He's still hard, so gloriously firm pressed against Charles. Charles can feel Erik's cock twitch at the idea of fucking him. He can feel everything from Erik. All Erik's thoughts and feelings crack and sizzle through him—Erik hasn't come because this hasn't been about him, hasn't been about pleasure, but that doesn't mean he's not stimulated. And Erik recognizes this is all wrong but it still feels twistedly right to him to say these things, to have Charles panting for it in his lap. "Would that help?" Erik catches Charles's ear lobe in his teeth. "Would that make you feel good?"

Charles groans and sends Erik an influx of _yes_. He leans back, taking Erik with him, and spreads himself, his cock heavy and impatient on his belly. Erik presses two come-wet fingers to his body and Charles gasps. It does feel good— _Erik_ is so good—but Charles can't help but imagine how much better it would feel under circumstances other than these. He fights down the lump in his throat and focuses on sending Erik _yes_ and _more_ before he loses himself to the rabid fiery need.

 

* * *

 

Charles's thoughts are hungry as he urges Erik harder, deeper. Erik senses that Charles wants the hurt, wants to cut through the awful, interminable ache of what's possessed him with fast, sharp pain. But Erik only allows it a few times. Charles fights and craves, sweat-slick skin always moving. And Erik lets himself be pushed, pulled, directed. But it's him that brings Charles off. Each time, it's been him. He doesn't let Charles touch himself, and Charles seems to want it that way, want Erik's hands on him, everywhere, as much as possible.

So Erik touches him as much as he can and fucks him hard as he dares and Charles drinks his kisses and shouts his name. Erik grips Charles's thighs, his hips. He strokes Charles's sides, then his cock. He stays close, close enough to breathe in Charles's salty thick scent, to let Charles bite his neck, suck on his lip, grab his hair. He works to keep Charles with him.

When Charles crashes into orgasm this time it's a torrent of sensation and searing white that blinds Erik, blanks his mind and leaves him breathless. But it's the split-second sight of Charles just before that—Charles lost, wide-eyed, clutching and grasping, flushed from navel to neck—that shoves Erik over the same edge.

It takes longer for the need to build in Charles after that.

When it does, Charles, half conscious, shuffles close in the circle of Erik's arms. He kisses him drowsily and with tongue, hand to Erik's jaw, and Erik feels the churn of arousal in his gut. It's genuine want. The kind that spins you apart, reorders your sky, and sets itself as your center. Erik kisses Charles and tries to show him the realigned cosmos, an iron-cold planet newly orbiting a shining hot sun, and hopes he understands that it means _yours now_.

They come together, at the same time, in Erik's hand. Lying on their sides, curled together like tangled punctuation, Erik jerks them to it lazily. As it happens, Charles holds his breath, open-mouthed, and Erik breathes Charles's name and shuts his eyes, feeling rather than watching the warm fluid coat his fingers. Several minutes later, Erik feels Charles go tender soft in his hand. And moments after that Charles sinks into inky unconsciousness.

Erik presses his lips to Charles's clammy forehead. His mind feels empty in its silence.

 

* * *

 

When Charles wakes it's nearly dark. His head is throbbing, but he's warm. Comfortably warm when the last he remembers is sodden cold. He winces against the stab of pain in his head and rummages for sensory detail. The sheets have been stripped off the bed. He's on the bare mattress, covered by a blanket. And he has clothing on. Clean clothing even, by the scent—pajama bottoms and a jumper—different from what he'd started the day in. Small tokens of dignity provided by Erik. Charles's heart feels tight in his chest.

"Erik." His voice is hardly a rasp. He coughs.

Next to him, Erik opens his eyes, immediately alert.

"Erik, I—" But his throat is too dry. _Thank you_ , he projects, and _I'm sorry_.

Erik sits up—he's clean, dressed, hardly rumpled—and reaches for something on the nightstand nearby. He holds out a glass of water and beckons Charles to sit up. Charles does, to great protest from his head. Dehydration, he thinks to himself, and accepts the water with a silent toast to Erik's forethought.

"You've nothing to be sorry for," Erik counters, proffering an apple.

Finishing off the water, Charles takes that, too. He passes the emptied glass back to Erik and hefts the fruit in his hand. His stomach is surely empty but he feels too ill to eat. Erik clicks on a low table lamp and Charles blinks. He barely recognizes the wood-paneled walls and orange carpet. He hadn't known about the small loo with a sink, there, set off in the corner. He doesn't see the dirty linens anywhere.

Charles shakes his head. "I apologize for compromising you, Erik."

"I don't feel compromised, Charles." Erik's tone is kind, but Charles feels red rise on his cheeks anyway as a montage of images tumbles through his mind. He ordinarily isn't one to berate himself or suffer embarrassment but, oh, what he had done. What _they_ had done. How Charles had begged for something he had no right to, how he'd made shameless use of Erik. What an indecent demand of a man he not only respects but cares for immensely.

With a dizzying start Charles realizes he hasn't the vaguest idea how to navigate their friendship now. Uncharted waters didn't begin to cover it. The stars may as well have realigned.

He sighs. Every muscle fiber in his body is wrung-out with exhaustion. "Yes, well. You didn't have to help me."

But even as Charles says them, he knows the words are idiotic. Of course Erik didn't have to. It wasn't as though there was some kind of CIA protocol for this, and, so far as Charles remembers—and he does hope he remembers this correctly—he had been too far 'round the bend to use his telepathy to compel Erik to help. But Charles also remembers, sharply, the relief he found in Erik's touch and on that alone he knows that the woman's kiss could have proven fatal, that he might have remained trapped in this tiny room. Had Erik not intervened, well—

The thought makes Charles's chest tight to bursting again. For all Erik Lehnsherr might try to convince the world otherwise, there is good in him. Charles has seen it. He's alive because of it.

"You jumped into the water to save me, I jumped into the fire for you," Erik says as he moves to fetch more water, a half lilt of humor in his voice.

Charles tips a smile before he finds himself swallowing against the memory of _burning_ and tries not to think about how much else Erik heard from his mind.

But it was true, what he'd said, wasn't it? Erik had simply reciprocated. "So we're even now," Charles muses, surprised to hear a tenor of bitterness in his voice. Indeed, surprised he'd spoken the thought aloud at all.

But thinking of it that way, as an evening of the score, made sense. Erik's power flows through him; his body is his instrument. Of course he wouldn't object to using it as he had to rescue Charles. Of course the sex act itself had been nothing more than the means to the end of saving Charles's life. That Charles had wanted Erik before this didn't matter. The things they had said in the moment didn't matter.

Charles stares down at the apple he'd been given and ignores the echo of _yours now_ and the phantom feel of Erik's kiss. None of it signified any more.

And then Erik is standing before him—tall, trim, controlled, _Erik_.

"It isn't like that," Erik says, handing him another glass of water, his eyes full of thoughts Charles wishes he could drink in. "It wasn't only that."

  


  


**\- end -**  


  


**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Lielabell for being my litmus test and mattie4 for being the PhD candidate who reads my porn. Extra special thanks to sublunarymagic who tossed around poetry with me in my hour of need. Not only did I take her joking reference to Donne seriously, I cribbed one of his lines for my title, appropriated his metaphor for the emotional center of the story, and featured a key passage as an epigraph, because I am, apparently, precisely that pretentious.
> 
> The above photo is from [this porny picspam](http://likecharity.livejournal.com/211903.html). Many thanks to Rubynye for pointing me to it.


End file.
